Damian Lewis makes an appealing terrorist

By FRAZIER MOOREAssociated Press

September 29, 2012 12:01 AM

Actor Damien Lewis, left, winner of the Emmy for outstanding lead actor in a drama series for "Homeland" and actress Claire Danes, winner of the Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a drama series, also for "Homeland", pose backstage at the 64th Primetime Emmy Awards at the Nokia Theatre on Sunday, Sept. 23, 2012, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP)ERIE TIMES-NEWS

By FRAZIER MOOREAssociated Press

September 29, 2012 12:01 AM

It could be, no TV drama has ever given viewers such a damaged pair of protagonists as Brody and Carrie on "Homeland."

Marine Sgt. Nicholas Brody was a prisoner of war in Afghanistan who returned home a national hero -- and, covertly, a terrorist turncoat (having been turned by al-Qaida during his 8-year imprisonment).

Carrie Mathison was a CIA agent whose obsessive inability to prove Brody's betrayal, coupled with her bipolar disorder, led to her dismissal from the agency and a mental breakdown.

During this Showtime series' gripping first season, Carrie and Brody played a cat-and-mouse game of global intrigue, swapping roles as one, then the other, seemed to gain the upper hand. Along the way, they had a brief, tumultuous love affair.

On Sunday, "Homeland" begins its second season, boasting a haul of Emmys that includes the best drama award and trophies for best actress and actor for stars Claire Danes and Damian Lewis.

Six months after last season's action, Brody is a newly elected U.S. congressman and a prospective vice presidential candidate still in thrall to al-Qaida. Carrie now works as a teacher and continues her recovery, still reeling from her painful conclusion that Brody was innocent all along.

"The writers have carried off this trick -- haven't they? -- of creating two engaging anti-heroes," Lewis said.

Speaking as if an audience member, he sums up the show's shrewd symmetry: "Carrie Mathison can save us, and we want her to save us. But her illness and her ambition at times creates a self-absorbed monster who will stop at nothing just to achieve her goals.

"Brody, on the other hand, is barely defensible because of his endless lying and the fact that he represents such danger. But there's sympathy for him, because he's a victim as well."

Before "Homeland," the London-born Lewis, 41, was known for his role as an American war hero in the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers" as well as for the remake of "The Forsyte Saga" and the NBC whodunit "Life."

Lewis is in New York on a brief break from shooting "Homeland" in North Carolina. He is joined by his wife, actress Helen McCrory, with whom he has a young son and daughter.

Lewis in person is charming, with a gift for mimicry, possesses a certain prep-school polish.

He is leading-man handsome, with ginger-red hair and penetrating blue eyes he puts to good use as Brody. But beyond his status as a heartthrob, Lewis is rightly hailed for the precision of his acting as, on "Homeland," he juggles Brody's many personalities and moods within a narrowly defined emotional range.

Lewis insists he was surprised to land an Emmy for his work.

"There were more reasons not to win than there were for me to win," he said, among them popular rivals in the category such as oft-awarded Bryan Cranston and perennially jilted Jon Hamm. "I'm over the moon."

"I was so thrilled to see him win," said "Homeland" executive producer Alex Ganza. "Claire's performance gets to be wonderfully operatic, but Damian has to exist in those small margins at the edge of his behavior, and he's so restrained."

That wasn't the case in Lewis' early acting career, when most of what he did was theater.

"I felt then that I might never be a screen actor, because I was big and expressive on stage," Lewis said. "But I made a conscious decision to shrink my performance, make it less expansive, and to internalize everything as deep inside as I possibly could."

That concentrated power has paid off big-time on "Homeland," helping make Brody seem indispensable when, initially, he was living on borrowed time.

The producers at first saw Brody as a secondary figure who might not last past Season 1.

"But as we fleshed out the middle part of the season, we began to see the magic when Claire and Damian were on-screen together," Ganza said. "It was if the word 'chemistry' was flashing on the screen. So what we had thought was a series about a CIA officer chasing terrorists was something quite different: It was a dance between these two characters.

"They are hooked into each other," Lewis agreed. "The damage he can do to Carrie is on a personal, emotional level. So even if Brody no longer is a central threat to homeland security, he can possibly survive in the series just being terribly destructive to Carrie -- and to himself."